Backing Up on a New Machine

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Level 1

1 points

Backing Up on a New Machine

SO i just upgraded from a Quad power mac to a Mac Pro = ). I restored the computer from my Time Machine backups from the older box. All worked fine. However, the issue now is this:

When I try to backup the new machine, it wants to create an entirely new backup folder. I do not have the space to do this, for it won't delete my older backups this way. I also don't need to sit and rebackup everything that is already backed up, just in a separate folder.

How do I make the new machine just become a continuation to this old backup file?

Mac Pro 8-core 2.8, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Nov 19, 2008 8:38 PM

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Answer 1

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Nov 19, 2008 9:02 PM in response to BleedingStar

BleedingStar wrote:
SO i just upgraded from a Quad power mac to a Mac Pro = ). I restored the computer from my Time Machine backups from the older box. All worked fine. However, the issue now is this:

When I try to backup the new machine, it wants to create an entirely new backup folder. I do not have the space to do this, for it won't delete my older backups this way. I also don't need to sit and rebackup everything that is already backed up, just in a separate folder.

How do I make the new machine just become a continuation to this old backup file?

You don't. TM has to make a new full backup on the new computer and there is no way around that. so you'll either have to delete old backups or move them to a different drive.

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Answer 2

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Nov 19, 2008 9:05 PM in response to BleedingStar

AFAIK, that's normal behavior because you have a new machine, with a different UUID and machine-specific stuff on it. Trying to use a TM backup from an older machine will do nothing but cause havoc on the new machine. If you need to keep the old backup (why?) and don't have enough space, get another external HD.

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Answer 3

BleedingStar Author

Level 1

1 points

Nov 20, 2008 1:09 AM in response to baltwo

Because its still all my info...... say i remember i need a file and couldn't find it and needed to look through old backups to find it.... I would like to have the backups just the same as any other time i use time machine..... its all still the same info, i just changed the hardware. its kinda sad they make it so easy to load up the new computer exactly the same as your old one was, but you can't continue backing it up...

instead i have to delete my old backup, and just rebackup the same info.... its not like backing up 400 gb is exactly a quick little task. infact, i have an external drive for media.... and I back that up as well. So I have to delete that entire 200 gb back up and then reback it up.... sounds pretty pointless to me.

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Answer 4

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Nov 20, 2008 8:30 AM in response to BleedingStar

you said that you migrated all your data from the TM backup to the new computer so why do you need the old backups so much? Migration assistant migrates everything from the backups to the new computer. In any event, as I said there is absolutely no way around this. A new computer will make a full new TM backup.

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Answer 5

BleedingStar Author

Level 1

1 points

Nov 30, 2008 1:18 AM in response to V.K.

Again, this is pretty sad. Kinda of contradictory that the program backups up as many states as you can hold on a hard drive, but that when you switch hardware you have to deem those states worthless..... It's kinda of the point of backing up multiple states is in case I realized I deleted a file that i needed say 2 weeks ago. It's kinda the whole point of Time Machines setup. Oh, well guess I'll have to sacrifice this benefit to make this switch.

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Answer 6

BleedingStar Author

Level 1

1 points

Nov 30, 2008 2:44 PM in response to BleedingStar

well here we go with the 30 hour backup... when it should of been a 10 minute backup... uggg... again, what a pain.

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Answer 7

BleedingStar Author

Level 1

1 points

Dec 2, 2008 11:09 PM in response to BleedingStar

Maybe i should rephrase that to a 200 hour backup... here we are on day 3 and we are not even half way done.... sweet!!!!!

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